“Living it now”
As we look forward to a new home for the Cannon Design Chicago office, we’re starting to shift our understanding of what an office should be. I decided to run with one of these shifts, which thinks of our office as a compelling public venue to which we can “invite the world.”
As I helped Jeff Leitner and Howell Malham plan the Insight Lab that partnered with Cannon, I jumped on the opportunity to organize an exhibit in our space that both invited creative expression and gathered fun and interesting people who might not otherwise drop by. Typically a 3-hour intense verbal discussion, this Lab would be the first of its kind with an exhibit component. Held on August 26th, the Lab questioned whether design is inherently humane and consisted of an impressive group of creatives spanning fields of design, the arts and science. John Syvertsen, Trung Le, Christian Long, Randy Guillot and I from Cannon all participated. At the end of the three hour session, I asked the participants to create a piece that represented and embodied their understanding of the discussion. These pieces would then be curated and put on display in our office a month later.
The tension between art and business was a dominant topic in the Insight Lab. Are designers artists who have stifled their human creativity and entered the business world? Are we slaves to the RFP? Two themes within these topics powered the exhibit: what does design offer that benefits humanity and what can we, as individual designers, do to ensure we support our human creativity? Pieces ranged from fine art on canvas to pottery to conversation cards to digital media.
Insight Lab reactions
Not only did nearly every Lab participant contribute a piece, but Insight Lab founders, Howell and Jeff were thrilled with the idea of a tangible component of their Labs. They now plan to have an artist in every Lab and will commission him or her to create a piece from the conversation.
Exhibitions
On a personal note, I’ve recently been interested in using curation and exhibitions to present my anthropology research findings. Although not involving my own materials, this event allowed me to beta test the format and the process of creating a story through the presentation of physical objects.
To me, one of the most ‘humane’ things about the design world is that it honors multiple forms of expression and modes of communication. It honors the diversity of our minds and thinking styles. As an anthropologist within an architecture firm, I want my ethnographies to tell the story of a community and its values in a dynamic and tactile way. Community members and first-time visitors can walk through and physically experience the heart of a community. And of course, the experiential format will handily celebrate the personality of spaces we create.
-Sarah Malin